Day 47: Show Me The Money!

So money is one of the few things in life that stress me out, and I'm always in a constant battle not to think about it too much. For the last few years, before coming to Korea, I had pretty much been living paycheque to paycheque. Because I lived in crazy-expensive Vancouver, every penny had to be carefully managed. 40% of all my earnings just went to rent (in slower months closer to 50%!) and the rest was split between food, bills, student loan payments, and of course, attempting to maintain an active social life! Well things have certainly changed since coming to Korea. I don't pay rent. I don't pay bills (well, as in hydro or cable or internet bills). All I pay for is my own food. And the rest is all for me to do with as I please. This has been a HUGE WEIGHT lifted off of my shoulders, as now, for the first time in my life, I have a substantial flow of cash coming in, without all of it being so quickly diverted into the seemingly bottomless coffers of all my debts before I even had a chance to see it. This new financial situation feels much, much better, I can tell you that much!

But it certainly hasn't been without its frustrations here! My boss has been paying me, but because money has been tight this month at the school, with the new semester starting and all, they've only been able to afford to pay me in little chunks here and there instead of getting it all in one lump sum. This has been kind of a pain in the ass, as I'm not used to finances being handled so informally. Apparently Korean hagwons (private language schools) are notorious for trying to cheap their teachers out of their proper earnings, and that has always been a fear of mine, but fortunately I'm not quite in that sort of situation. I have been getting paid, it's just been taking longer than what I thought it would be, and it's been in spurts of cash to me here and there. I've been trying hard not to let this stress me out either! My boss is quite possibly the most honest man I've ever met so I have complete faith that I will get paid, in full, eventually. We've had talks about the current system, and he's uncomfortable with it as well. Luckily things are supposed to change next month and that's when regular, formal payments will begin, with me getting paid bi-weekly. That will be so much better and easier for me!!!

Steven and I went and opened my Korean bank account here today - FINALLY!! This was the last major bureaucratic formality that I had to take care of, and now it's complete. I have a bank account, with an ATM card, a bank book, and even know how to do money transfers back to my account in Canada which is actually very simple to do. Ahhhh...let's all breathe a sigh of relief together, shall we? Now I can appease the evil demons known as American Express, as well as silence the quieter-yet-equally-greedy Visa, MasterCard, and oh yeah, those student loan thingies as well! Hooray - I'm a university graduate who's actually able to afford to pay off his debts now! Write that one in the history books!!! ;-)